"And you never told me about her," she said.
He leaned swiftly towards her. There was a sudden glow on his olive face that made him wonderfully handsome. "Mignonne!" he said eagerly, and then as swiftly checked himself. "Ah, no, I will not say it! You do not love the French."
"But I want to hear about your fiancée," she protested. "I can't think why you haven't told me."
He had straightened himself again, and there was something rather mournful in his look. "I have no fiancée, little one," he said.
"No?" Chris smiled all over her sunny face. She looked the merest child standing before him wrapped in the mackintosh that flapped about her bare ankles, the ruddy hair all loose about her back. "Then whatever made you pretend you had?" she said.
He smiled back, half against his will, with the eloquent shrug that generally served him where speech was awkward.
"And the woman you fought about?" she continued relentlessly.
"Mademoiselle Christine," he pleaded, "you ask of me the impossible. You do not know what you ask."
"Don't be silly," said Chris imperiously. The matter had somehow become of the first importance, and she had every intention of gaining her end. "It isn't fair not to tell me now, unless," with sudden doubt, "it's somebody whose acquaintance you are ashamed of."
He winced at that, and drew himself up so sharply that she thought for a moment that he was about to turn on his heel and walk away. Then very quietly he spoke.